Get Rid of Your Junk of EBay: How to Make a Living Selling on EBay

Got stuff in your house that you don't want, but you don't want to give away because you know there's got to be someone willing to pay for it? Maybe you want to sell it but don't feel like waiting until yard sale season or dealing with Craigslist weirdos? Why not try eBay? [I'm going to assume that you have the basic technological know-how to set up your own eBay account. If you don't, well, you're SOL.]

The best advice I can give you when trying to sell on eBay is to search and see if an item similar to yours is selling. Don't just post items because you want to sell them, because you might find yourself paying a bunch of listing fees for items that didn't sell because you didn't take a few minutes to do some research. Always include photographs with your listings as well as the most detailed description that you can. Ebay buyers want to know exactly what they are getting, and they will skip right over your item if they aren't sure.

The trick to selling on eBay is supply and demand, demand being, perhaps, the most essential component, since you could have a lifetime supply of bacon-flavored lip gloss, but if nobody wants what you've got, supply means nothing. How do you find out what's in demand? Use the search function. Items that are in high demand will bring up a list of items with lots of bids and prices that shoot through the roof. Some items in consistent high demand are collectible records, vintage ephemera and jewelry, and anything brand name.

Let's say you have a stack of vintage photographs that you lifted from your grandma's attic. Search for "vintage photographs." When the listings load, you'll see the number of items found for your search (16,213 for mine). Find the option "Sort By", and change it to "Time: Ending Soonest." Now you can gauge what's actually selling: items with zero bids probably won't sell, and even items with 1 bids were lucky hits. You want to look for the items that have upwards of 5 bids in order to gauge what's selling best. This will also give you an idea of how to price your item. If your item is similar to the items garnering lots of bids, you're in luck. If not, you need to find a way to increase demand. If your search brings up 10 of the same item and none of them have bids, don't waste your time or money listing your item.

There are two ways to help your eBay auctions sell better. The first is free shipping. Hesitant shoppers are more inclined to make an impulse purchase if they know that shipping is free. Obviously, you want to include the cost of shipping in your bid amount or you're going to end up losing money, but for some reason, an item listed at a slightly higher price with free shipping tends to sell better than one at a lower price with shipping separate, even if the prices are exactly the same total! If you are lucky enough to get a bidding war* on your listing, you'll likely sell your item for a significantly higher price. So whenever you can, offer free shipping and price your item accordingly. (Unsure how to price for shipping? Get a stack of flat-rate envelopes. Everything that fits in the envelope ships for the same low price.) * A bidding war occurs when two bidders try to outbid each other resulting in an inflated selling price.

The next way to increase your chance of selling an item is to sell groups of items as a lot. Here's what your buyer is thinking: Why buy one photograph when you can buy twenty? Sure, you might make less per item when you sell as a lot, but isn't it better to lose a few bucks in one transaction than to have a bunch of unsold items? The answer is yes, since you pay a few per transaction: bundle your items and you'll pay less in fees.

You can make a lot of cash on eBay, but it requires patience, research, and a whole lot of luck. Here's to bidding wars!